A Dry, Hot Land

[badams52]

The rest was as you say history. I quickly secured the continent and left Rome to the one island city to the south. I wanted 3 civs so that when I started out researching Russia (as I was sure I would) it would be harder for them to keep up, but Russia, seeing my ploy sent it's forces and captured the last of the Roman cities.

I decided I didn't want to fight Russia, so I built and built quickly letting Russia take all the corruption rich islands between the continents. I used my 4 luxiries to get gpt deals from Russia and did the same with my techs to keep money out of Russia's coffers and into mine so that I could accelerate my research even more.

I gave Russia 100 gold as a gift (thanks bamspeedy) and they immediately became polite with me. Later Russia came to me and asked for a ROP and MPP for 2 gpt . I guess Russia wanted protection from themselves . Remembering bamspeedy's article on attitute, I agreed but gave them 55 gold instead of the 2gpt to keep their gpt down. Russia was now gracious with me with all the trading going on where they stayed for the rest of the game.

After the war, I was behind Russia in tech in the middle ages, but once I got to the industrial age, I caught up and then surpassed Russia building the 3 wonders of the industrial age though WS was really unnecessary.

What surprised me was as I got to the building of the spaceship and clearly in the lead (I even researched miniturization and genetics before the last SS tech), Russia went back and researched amphibious warfare and advanced flight

The Babylonian spaceship launched in 1995.

[badams52]

Some of the things I learned from this game, and I bet many of you know this already:

1. War releaves the ailing civ.

Don't have enough power, don't have enough land? Go to war and take what's yours. It's also helpful when you're near a warlike neighbor (Romans) and you have enough units to defend their attacks.

2. The AI is terrible at war.

He attacks across rivers, up to hills and mountains ignoring how important defensive bonuses are.

2a. Always use terrain to get defensive bonuses and draw the AI to terrain without.

It's easy to do really. Keep your troops on mountains and hills. The AI likes to get on those types of terrain for defensive bonuses too, but if you occupy them first, he'll either attack you or go to the plains, grasslands and deserts where the units are much easier to attack. Also when attacking cities, don't attack across the river. Take the extra time (if it takes more time) to move your troops to where the river won't affect your attack.

3. Go for the resources

The AI isn't good at stopping you from pillaging his resources. Pillaging them sends him back to ancient times withonly spearmen or riflemen if he's more advanced to defend with and longbowmen to attack with. Always funny to see a stack of longbowmen trying to attack my tanks. Of course if you're way ahead in tech, then pillaging resources is moot.

4. Make gpt deals with the AI

The less money the AI has to play with, the less research he can do. Conversely, the more money you extort from the AI, the faster your tech advantage grows.

5. Deficit spend on research

This doesn't always work, but if you have enough gold laying around, you can lose money while researching faster. This helped me build a great lead against the AI.

6. Building units and disbanding old ones can be just as good if not better than upgrading with gold.

I didn't have enough gold to upgrade all my units at once, so I built new ones and disbanded the old ones in cities and towns that didn't have high levels of production, killing 2 birds with one stone so to speak.

7. Being behind is only temporary.

Though I will say if your military isn't strong enough, you're not going to go very far, but even if you're behind in tech, numbers count more than quality. Just pillage some resources and you even the playing field. The AI doesn't know how to mobilize for war properly and most of the time, you can outbuild his army.

That's enough for now. But I'm going to leave you with this: because the AI has become a fast REX and building AI taking best strategies in Civ and Civ II, the counter to this is war, war and more war. Now if only the AI could understand counter measures...

[Ephesos]

I think that sounds like a great game. Thrashing the Romans (I hate them above all other civs ), launching a spaceship, and, well, thrashing the Romans (I usually play as Greece/Persia, and I have a history-based grudge). What level were you playing on?

I'm fairly new to the game, and I've only won twice, both cultural victories on chieftain. Pretty sad, but I'm improving (in one culture victory, I completely wiped out the Romans and left Egypt with one city early on).

The strategies you suggested , while conventional, do work great. One thing you covered in the game summary, but forgot to formally mention was PLACE YOUR PALACE & FP CAREFULLY!!! It's obvious that that sped your game up, and possibly allowed you to win, judging from the pretty awful start.

[badams52]

Well in my summary, I wrote down new things I learned and the knowledge of FP + Palace placement being known previous, I didn't mention it.

The game was a monarch level game. If you move up, and it sounds like you should, you will less often win culturally.

[Ephesos]

As a matter of fact, I did move up just recently. I'm Egypt, and I'm trying to fight the French and the Russians, both of them only one continent away. I've actually destroyed 3 cities, and I think my game is getting better than my Chieftain games.

Of course, the great library helped.

[Ephesos]

As a followup on this game, I've taken 3 French cities, raised my total destroyed count to 4, and taken a Russian city. I'm still bashing the French with Knights , but I've found peace with Russia and Germany (also on Russia & France's continent). I'm foremost techwise, and I'm actually pretty strong.

[badams52]

Sounds like the game is in the bag, just gotta mop up and decide which victory to head for.

[Ephesos]

You're right about that. France has 1 city left (I took the Oracle from them), and I think I'll leave them there, since I'd have to go through Germany to get there. I just have to boost my science some more, since Russia is getting ahead of me (they've got Astronomy and Music Theory).

Meanwhile, no one has contacted the Iroquois. They'll probably surprise both me and my opponents. They've has 5300 years to develop on a private continent.

[minke19104]

well if they're isolated, the Iroquois is most likely backwards..

[badams52]

Originally posted by minke19104
well if they're isolated, the Iroquois is most likely backwards..

*picturing the Iroquois as a bunch of backwoods southerners*

Actually come to think of it, kind of like in real life too. There the Iroquois were minding their own business when all those blasted Europeans came along during imperialism

[Ephesos]

Quite true. And as a matter of fact, Russia has claimed the northern third of their continent. How's that for historically accurate (ignore that Egypt - me - nearly wiped out France)? It's only a matter of time until I get the Iroquois to help me take on that blasted Catherine!